(CN) – The U.S. Supreme Court had a change of heart Tuesday about a case where interview disclosures led to a Kansas police officer facing felony charges.
Matthew Vogt had been a police officer for the city of Hays, Kansas, in 2013, when he applied for a position on the Haysville Police Department outside Wichita.
Though Vogt admitted during the interview that he once kept a suspect’s knife during the course of his work in Hays, the Haysville department still offered Vogt the job, on one condition: He had to first tell Hays police about the knife.
Vogt agreed and included a one-sentence declaration about keeping the knife when he offered his two weeks’ notice.
Haysville wound up rescinding its job offer, however, when the Hays police chief called for a criminal investigation.
Though Vogt did evade felony prosecution — the charges were dismissed for lack of probable cause — he brought a civil lawsuit against that accused Hays and Haysville of violating his civil rights.
A federal judge dismissed the case, but the 10th Circuit found last year that Vogt could have a case against the city of Hays.
Vogt’s case appeared destined to go to Washington in September then when the U.S. Supreme Court granted Hays a writ of certiorari.
On Tuesday, however, the court dismissed the write as improvidently granted.
The opinion includes no other details on the case except a note that Justice Neil Gorsuch, formerly of the 10th Circuit, took no part in its consideration or resolution.
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